Critique Matters: Developing Critical Methods with Practical Relevance for Organizing Cross-Cultural Diversity

Lotte Holck, Sara Louise Muhr

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperResearch

Abstract

Concerned with tackling central issues within organizational diversity such as power inequality, managerial control and domination, critical diversity research has a potential for real, substantive changes. Yet this potential is by and large untapped, as critical diversity researcher have a tradition for passive methods with the researcher standing on the ‘outside’ pointing to problematic organizational practices. Echoing Lewin’s (1946) assentation that ‘to understand a system, you have to try and change it’, this paper explores how intervention-based research can be a way to conduct critically inspired research with the ambition to provide relevant implications for organizational practitioners. Ethnographic data from Danish Police Officers on summer assistance in Greenland Police (collected in both Denmark and Greenland) has been used to perform critical interventions in relation to cross-cultural training offered to Danish officers on a pre-departure course as well as at a leadership seminar for the top-management team in Greenland Police. The paper demonstrates how critical-affirmative interventions of tempered radicalism might instigate small scale practitioner-relevant changes as basis for larger organizational changes. In doing so, this paper contributes by the development of critical methods ‘that matter’ and inform critical diversity research on increasing practical relevance and impact.
Original languageEnglish
Publication date7 Jul 2016
Publication statusPublished - 7 Jul 2016
EventThe 32nd EGOS Colloquium 2016: Organizing in the Shadow of Power - Napoli, Italy
Duration: 7 Jul 20169 Jul 2016
Conference number: 32
http://www.egosnet.org/2016_naples/general_theme

Conference

ConferenceThe 32nd EGOS Colloquium 2016
Number32
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityNapoli
Period07/07/201609/07/2016
Internet address

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